If you've never been there how do you know
how it feels to be told to go back home?
The right to remain and the right to roam
should balance each other. It need be so

if we're as intent as we seem to be
on burning this rock to ashes and dust
as though it were fate. Well, isn't it just?
If you'd lost your home, then wouldn't you flee?

If men with big guns were shooting at you,
threatening your family with rape, or worse,
would that not tempt you your country to curse
and search for sanctuary somewhere new?

How deep does your patriotism go?
Farther than your humanity? That deep?
Did your morals survive a plunge so steep?
And on that subject, be honest: how low,

dark or far would you stoop to defend it?
Could you shut up and give it room to grow?
Could you let it dream, or do you not know,
or care, what hopes are needed to tend it?

Well i have been on the receiving end,
threatened for being in just the wrong place -
speaking English, unfamiliar face -
and rest assured, it is frightening, my friend:

when you're in the wrong place, at the wrong time
and everyone nearby is a stranger
then you will get the meaning of danger
and know that your bigotry is a crime.

MP 19-251124

[Dedicated to far to many people i know.]